Trump’s Bout With COVID-19 Might Be Hurting His Reelection Chances
By Nathaniel Rakich
Filed under 2020 Election
Sub-filed under 'ya think?'
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-b...n-chances/
◾Now this is a good icebreaker question for parties: On Monday, YouGov asked Americans, “How many enemies, if any, do you have?” Forty-four percent of respondents said they had no enemies, 5 percent said they had one enemy, 8 percent said they had two or three and 2 percent said they had four or five. A concerning 4 percent of Americans said they have five or more enemies. The remaining 36 percent were like, “WTF, YouGov?” (read: they said they didn’t know).
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
It’s been exactly one week since we learned that President Trump had tested positive for COVID-19. While it’s still hard to know what effect his diagnosis has had on the race, we do have some new polls to share; they don’t necessarily paint a consistent picture, though.
As my colleagues Geoffrey Skelley and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux wrote on Monday, polls conducted in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s diagnosis found that an overwhelming majority of Americans believed that Trump did not take the proper precautions to avoid getting sick. Newer polling agrees: For instance, CNN/SSRS found that 63 percent of Americans thought Trump acted irresponsibly in risking the health of the people around him. However, it’s not clear that this affected people’s perceptions of whether Trump could continue to govern effectively. Sixty-six percent of respondents in the poll said they weren’t concerned about the government’s ability to operate while Trump was ill.
There is some evidence, though, that Trump’s illness may be hurting his reelection chances. SurveyUSA was in the field with a national poll from Oct. 1 (before Trump announced his diagnosis) to Oct. 4 (when Trump was in the hospital), and the pollster found that Joe Biden led Trump by just 4 points in interviews conducted before Trump was hospitalized. But in interviews after Trump’s hospitalization, Biden led by 16 points. A Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll identified a similar pattern: Biden led by 5 points in interviews conducted before Trump’s diagnosis and by a shocking 21 points in interviews after it.
But not every poll showed this shift. Monmouth University, one of the best pollsters in the business, was also in the field with a Pennsylvania survey late last week, and it found that the horse race largely did not change after Trump’s diagnosis. Biden led by 12 points in interviews on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 and by 13 points in interviews from Oct. 2 to Oct. 4. Civiqs/Daily Kos, polling just after Trump’s diagnosis, asked a detailed question about how “anything in the news or in [their] daily life” might affect people’s votes, but they found that essentially no one was changing their minds.
In addition, Skelley and Thomson-DeVeaux talked to multiple political scientists who said that attitudes on the coronavirus have hardened over the past several months, especially along party lines, so a big shift in public opinion is unlikely.
Not to mention, a solid majority of Americans already believed that Trump was mishandling the pandemic; to them, his illness may merely serve as confirmation of what they already believed, whereas Trump’s defenders may not be inclined to change their minds since he has downplayed his illness. Indeed, our tracker of Trump’s approval rating on the coronavirus hasn’t budged since last week — and it is still heavily split by party.
By Nathaniel Rakich
Filed under 2020 Election
Sub-filed under 'ya think?'
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-b...n-chances/
◾Now this is a good icebreaker question for parties: On Monday, YouGov asked Americans, “How many enemies, if any, do you have?” Forty-four percent of respondents said they had no enemies, 5 percent said they had one enemy, 8 percent said they had two or three and 2 percent said they had four or five. A concerning 4 percent of Americans said they have five or more enemies. The remaining 36 percent were like, “WTF, YouGov?” (read: they said they didn’t know).
Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
It’s been exactly one week since we learned that President Trump had tested positive for COVID-19. While it’s still hard to know what effect his diagnosis has had on the race, we do have some new polls to share; they don’t necessarily paint a consistent picture, though.
As my colleagues Geoffrey Skelley and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux wrote on Monday, polls conducted in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s diagnosis found that an overwhelming majority of Americans believed that Trump did not take the proper precautions to avoid getting sick. Newer polling agrees: For instance, CNN/SSRS found that 63 percent of Americans thought Trump acted irresponsibly in risking the health of the people around him. However, it’s not clear that this affected people’s perceptions of whether Trump could continue to govern effectively. Sixty-six percent of respondents in the poll said they weren’t concerned about the government’s ability to operate while Trump was ill.
There is some evidence, though, that Trump’s illness may be hurting his reelection chances. SurveyUSA was in the field with a national poll from Oct. 1 (before Trump announced his diagnosis) to Oct. 4 (when Trump was in the hospital), and the pollster found that Joe Biden led Trump by just 4 points in interviews conducted before Trump was hospitalized. But in interviews after Trump’s hospitalization, Biden led by 16 points. A Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll identified a similar pattern: Biden led by 5 points in interviews conducted before Trump’s diagnosis and by a shocking 21 points in interviews after it.
But not every poll showed this shift. Monmouth University, one of the best pollsters in the business, was also in the field with a Pennsylvania survey late last week, and it found that the horse race largely did not change after Trump’s diagnosis. Biden led by 12 points in interviews on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 and by 13 points in interviews from Oct. 2 to Oct. 4. Civiqs/Daily Kos, polling just after Trump’s diagnosis, asked a detailed question about how “anything in the news or in [their] daily life” might affect people’s votes, but they found that essentially no one was changing their minds.
In addition, Skelley and Thomson-DeVeaux talked to multiple political scientists who said that attitudes on the coronavirus have hardened over the past several months, especially along party lines, so a big shift in public opinion is unlikely.
Not to mention, a solid majority of Americans already believed that Trump was mishandling the pandemic; to them, his illness may merely serve as confirmation of what they already believed, whereas Trump’s defenders may not be inclined to change their minds since he has downplayed his illness. Indeed, our tracker of Trump’s approval rating on the coronavirus hasn’t budged since last week — and it is still heavily split by party.
